While elitism and ego have certainly played a role in the dialog since the beginning of computing, this perspective conflates those issues with the very real technical arguments against the listed technologies. C and other contemporary languages had their limitations; you were sacrificing flexibility and potentially speed for a more pleasant and maintainable development experience. Garbage collection dates from long before the 90s and has always been controversial, in no small part from differing tastes and opinion on whether other memory management techniques are truly more difficult. The assumption that these technologies lowered the barrier to entry may be the crux of much of the argumentation.